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Posted: February 7, 2008 6:48 PM
In Democratic Delegate Race, Everyone Says They're Winning
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While the Republican side took a huge step toward selecting a nominee with former Gov. Mitt Romney’s departure from the race on Thursday, the leading Democratic candidates, with calculators in hand, were busy trying to claim a lead in their chaotic delegate race.

Super Tuesday appears by most analysts’ estimations to have been a draw — Sen. Hillary Clinton scored clear wins in delegate-rich California and New York, Sen. Barack Obama won in more states, including a hard-fought battle in Missouri. But even as party officials continue to nail down exactly how many delegates each candidate will walk away with, both campaigns were declaring victories and leads.

Obama’s mathematical wizards declared with assurance that they on Wednesday sported a whopping 28-delegate lead (something in the neighborhood of a 1 percent lead out of the more than 2,000 delegates selected thus far).

“Through the first 26 states, we have won more states, won more delegates, won more total votes than Sen. Clinton,” Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Wednesday morning. “It’s clear the [Clinton’s] strategy was predicated on trying to secure the Democratic nomination last night, and on that score they failed miserably.”

But Clinton need not worry and only would have to read the Associated Press, which the NewsHour also uses as its benchmark to find out that she is, in fact, winning.

“Overall, Clinton has 1,045 delegates, to 960 for Obama with 2,025 delegates required to claim the nomination in Denver at this summer’s convention,” AP writer Stephen Ohlemacher wrote late Wednesday.

But for Clinton’s chief strategist, it sounded as if he wished it would all just go away.

“This is a contest that would be all but over based on a winner-take-all system,” said Clinton’s chief strategist Mark Penn, speaking to reporters this morning.

That is cold comfort for the New York senator who faces weeks of battles ahead for each delegate, a fight their campaign, or at least its spokesman, by later in the day was ready to face.

“Because of proportional allocation, it is likely that neither side will ever come out with a large lead in delegates,” Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s communications director, was quoted in Campaigns and Elections as saying this week. “Every single delegate will matter a great deal now. Super delegates will be critically important as well.”

And so the campaign rolls on to weekend contests in Washington state, Louisiana, Nebraska and Maine, where the conventional wisdom (which has been anything but wise as of late) has Obama doing well.

All this state-by-state fighting for delegates highlights a few outstanding issues that could loom large if the campaign drags on.

1) Super delegates: These senior party officials are not required to endorse any specific candidate. Clinton has enjoyed a lead among the nearly 800 set to go to the convention, but more than half have not declared whom they will support.

This group could be particularly important should the primaries and caucuses fail to deliver a clear-cut winner. But don’t expect them to flood to any candidate yet. Experts say they traditionally pile on once a clear nominee is selected.

2) Ohio and Texas. These states set to vote on March 4 could be the new Super Tuesday. Some 334 delegates will be elected in those two states on that day and a decisive or even convincing win could be the key to a Clinton or Obama win.

In fact, Clinton has already started campaigning in those two states, hoping sizeable Latino populations could help her there.

3) Michigan and Florida. Remember them? They voted already and overwhelmingly backed Clinton. Of course they were stripped of their delegates because they broke party rules and moved their primaries before Feb. 5. Now those few hundred delegates could become a source of contention.

Obama supporters in Michigan (128 delegates and 28 super delegates) have started pushing for a party caucus to essentially vote again, this time for delegates. Obama removed his name from the ballot in Michigan, a move that helped Clinton garner a majority in the state last month. Clinton supporters, including the governor, have said they will stand by the Jan. 15 vote, in which “uncommitted” won 40 percent of Democrats’ votes.

Florida (185 delegates and 25 super delegates), where all the candidates were on the ballot, could be another hot spot. The candidates agreed to not campaign or buy ads in the state, a move that the Obama people said put him at a disadvantage, but the results with Clinton winning 55 percent of the vote, could be critical if the campaign remains close.

Should this fight continue, those delegations could play a pivotal role in selecting a nominee, but how they were selected and whether they should be seated could be a protracted and ugly affair, should it come to that.

All of this math and these projections have even the campaigns wondering when, and if, it will end.

“All those who wish for a battle that goes to the convention,” Clinton’s Wolfson told the San Jose Mercury News, “you could be looking at such a contest here.”